I haven’t seen these episodes for a while (I really should get Jay to burn me a copy one of these days). It’s weird, because at the time, the production values were so far above anything I’d produced — this is in-between seasons 2 and 3, mind you. It still looks a bit slicker than the current stuff. I’m not totally sold on the writing, though, at least the first episode; I spent a long time on these scripts, long enough that I may have lost some of the spontaneity that comes from when I just wing it. Or it could just be that I’m looking back at stuff I made a year and a half ago. I’ve doubled the number of episodes since then. Naturally I’ll be a bit better at it than I was.

Enough babbling. I got the email today that AT&T were finally going to go live with the episodes. Might as well, seeing as how they paid us for them and everything. Episode 1 is up today, the rest should be up over the next few weeks.

YES.

The challenge was to create a new mini-episode of Jigsaw every weekday in the month of February. Today is the final day.

Monday through Friday. 5 episodes a week. 20 episodes total.

Not only did I succeed, but I managed to get all but one of them up before the end of normal East Coast business hours. Only two of them were posted after 2pm EST. And both of those were lengthy renders.

Wish list for season 4?

• MORE RAM. Or perhaps a new computer altogether.
• A better lighting kit. So the lamp doesn’t surge halfway through a take, exposing camera tricks.
• Mic that actually feeds into the computer, for voice over work that doesn’t sound crappy. This may require item 1b.

Comments? Thoughts? What would you like to see in the next season (keeping in mind that I have no idea when that season will be, apart from “at least three months from now”)?

I found this pen in the first couple days of February, and brought it home, knowing that if I got stuck for subject matter for season π, I could always do something with it. I mean, it really does say “Economic Stimulus Payment” on it, with the website of the IRS. Completely boggles my mind.

After a month, I still hadn’t used it. Today would have to be the day. But of course, I also hadn’t been able to figure out a punchline for it. So it dawned on me last night that the punch line could be the delivery. And so, this episode.

Sorry, awesome amazing person who sent me fan mail this morning talking about how much your kid loves the show; I hope you don’t mind a little drunken humor.

I had the basic idea for this last night, but was too tired to film it. Then I woke up with more of the idea finished, but realized I had to clean my desk in order to film it. Which was sort of a good thing, because the desk was an unusable mess.

File this under “more ideas for weird inventions I may come back to if I ever develop a longer, big-budget Jigsaw for any reason.” If nothing else, this Jigsaw π experiment has helped flesh out the show bible a bit.

One of these days I really should write the show bible.

A little insomnia last night led me to Hulu once again, and led me to discover they have Robocop in their library.

I must have had a copy of that movie in high school. That is the only thing that would explain why every frame is completely imprinted on the back of my retinas. I must have seen Robocop 50 times. And yet — and yet — I don’t know that I ever understood half of it.

It holds up surprisingly well. May be forced to actually buy it. Largely because watching Peter Weller work the robo suit is pretty astounding. Also, Kurtwood Smith. Dude.

No, I have no idea what prompted this rant.

It could not possibly have had anything to do with work. That’s just crazy talk.

Watching this episode, Girl said something to the effect of “People must not believe that all of this is just you.” It was grammatically less confused when she said it, but the gist remains; it is odd to think that, due to the fact that one of my characters has taken on my illness, another character would have to take his place. Both Milton and I were too sick to improvise a song. Kranium was perfectly healthy. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Which is not to say I didn’t feel sick while recording the song; I did discover the limits of my impaired lung capacity while recording the thumping bass sound. A coughing fit resulted that could be heard outside the house. This is why editing is such a useful tool.

Only one week left of the daily experiment. It might still kill me. We shall see. It astounds me that Ze Frank did this for an entire year. To be fair, though, at the time Ze Frank was more or less in the business of doing weird stuff like this. He also had viewers, which is not something I’m burdened with to any great extent. Something in the not wanting to disappoint thousands of strangers, likely a great motivator. If I don’t make it to next Friday, only a hundred or so would even notice. Which makes me very much looking forward to taking a little break.

Excuse me, the Coughening has begun.

DOLLHOUSE just isn’t very good. It could get better. I’m not holding my breath.

Wednesday is Lump Day!

I had fun with this one. Sort of unadulterated cuteness.

Also, if you had not yet guessed, I have a great love of kazoos.

I felt like crap all day. Super-dooper crap. It started in my throat, moving up and down my back, into my head, down my arms, pooling in my feet… and now ending up in this. Weird exhausted insomnia face, getting the Tuesday video ready very late Monday night.

So this is what I imagine the robot equivalent to be.

Nuff said.

You know, I had gotten used to my computer suddenly being very good at rendering. So when I finished editing at 9am this morning I thought, at the very least, I could come home in between job 1 and job 2 and post the video.

Instead I came home between job 1 and job 2 to start the second half of the render. And am now home in between job 2 and rehearsal (which I shouldn’t go to, as I feel deathlike and crabby, but have missed too many rehearsals to not feel guilty all night should I do so) doing the posting.

It’s been so long since I made the video I don’t remember it. That is both how long the rendering took, how crazy my schedule has become, and how sick I’m feeling. How three things can possibly fit under the blanket of the term “both” is another mystery for another day.

In fact, I myself had nothing to call in L4D to this morning. Though I will have to leave the house in five hours. Hopefully by then, the headache will be gone.

If I had, say, two fewer jobs, I’d do a micro-season every four months.

If I had more than half an hour to spend making each of these episodes? Man, something about having to do this EVERY DAY makes my synapses fire in strange and wonderful ways. I’m not sure that this is evident from the final product, but really, it’s like that first sip of hot green tea, without all that “waiting for water to boil”.

Also, I got a message from superstar Aaron over at blip asking me to give them a skyscraper ad for the front page. Because they love me almost as much as I love them. Ahhhhh… my video hosting provider rocks. Anyway, as I no longer have a digital camera, making today’s episode was the easiest way to get a semi-decent shot of Milton & Kranium for the ad. Behold.

Wednesday is Lump Day.

Also, I used to be a much better drummer.

Can you tell I’m underneath a heavy, heavy deadline?

I have never wished so hard for a Wacom tablet. My current set-up has been fine for one or two illustrations here and there. I don’t mind doing touch-ups with the mouse. But 28 illustrations in a row? Wristdeath. Shoulderdeath. Braindeath. 11 left to do, plus some layout funkiness. It’s only 11am and I’m feeling utterly trampled.

Send drugs. Good ones. See you tomorrow.

Truly I woke up this morning with the date wrong. But then, this seems to be a tradition with the daily videos made by others, so I suppose I should follow suit.

This is really what’s been on my sleep-deprived mind for the last twelve hours or so. I was at the movie theater, and I was coming up with a long-term plan for turning the place into a well-defended fortress, a place where the undead were unlikely to breach and where other survivors might only gain entrance with permission (learning my lesson well from Dawn of the Dead).

I came to an odd conclusion, though. Pretty much, if you’re dealing with early Romero-esque zombies, just about anywhere is safe if you build a five foot wall around it. Slow zombies don’t tend to climb much. Once they make it out of their grave, they drift along level ground. Fast zombies, they climb over barricades in a heartbeat, but slow zombies will just scrabble at a wall for a while, pulling it apart if they can, but otherwise looking for some other way around. Or just standing against the wall, groaning.

So. A five foot wall. Concrete and steel. That’ll keep most of your slow zombies at bay for a while. Plus, it should stop bullets, meaning should you get fire from roving bands of motorcycle meanies, you’ve got some additional protection.

Anyway. Let’s hear what you’d do to fortify your apartments in the comments.

And we come to the end of the first week of the daily episode experiment. Another new rule: Fridays will contain a song of some sort.

What do folks think? Drop me a comment.

At least one episode per season, I have lost a remarkable take for this very reason. Often, I get up, wipe the sweat off my face, take off various puppets, start to break down, and then decide to check the footage to be sure I have what I need — only to find the camera has been recording 20 minutes of the wall.

Lesson: never trust camcorder remotes. They mock us.

Wednesday is Lump Day.

I hadn’t thought of that pun while filming, but I think it’s a new rule for this project: Every Wednesday of season π must feature Lump. Which isn’t to say he can’t show up at other times, just… he has to appear every Wednesday.

It’s a good rule.